The world’s best orienteering athletes will visit Hungary to race for WOC-medals in four years.
During one of its meetings during the World Orienteering Championships in Switzerland, IOF Council decided to award Hungary the World Orienteering Championships in 2027, which is a forest WOC.
IOF Council had to decide on one of two strong bids, the other coming from Sweden.
The appointed Evaluation Panel has made a thorough assessment of the two bids in the past months and found that the bids were of the same high quality.
On that basis, Hungary was selected for the 2027 WOC by the IOF, enabling a greater variation in terrains as the forest WOC in 2025 is to be held in Nordic terrain in Finland.
– We have received two very strong bids for hosting the 2027 WOC and we feel certain that both applicants are able to deliver a World Orienteering Championship on a very high level. We have chosen the Hungarian bid as the IOF aims at creating a different challenge compared to WOC 2025, says IOF President Leho Haldna.
However, the IOF emphasizes that Sweden belongs to a relatively small group of countries having a strong base of orienteers and resources enabling delivery of a successful WOC. Consistently being the top nation in international elite events also suggests that Sweden is a good place to host the WOC in a near future.
Hungary has hosted two previous World Orienteering Championships, in 1983 and 2009.
Frontpage photo: Hungary’s Rita Marmarosi won the JWOC 2023 sprint earlier in July. By Camilla Bevensee